


Office Romance

by kethni



Category: Veep (TV)
Genre: F/M, request
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-15
Updated: 2020-11-15
Packaged: 2021-03-10 06:33:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,104
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27579202
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kethni/pseuds/kethni
Summary: For Anonymous who asked for "Kent/Sue just doing cute stuff in the office together? Like inside jokes and minimal actions etc. ?"
Relationships: Kent Davison/Sue Wilson
Comments: 6
Kudos: 8





	Office Romance

**Author's Note:**

> For Anonymous who asked for "Kent/Sue just doing cute stuff in the office together? Like inside jokes and minimal actions etc. ?"

They were mature, adult people with important and responsible jobs. They behaved in calm, reasonable, and responsible ways, particularly at work. That was clear and understood. Neither of them would have it differently. They both understood and appreciated it in each other.

Nobody at work would have ever known that they were “socialising” outside of work and that was right and proper. There was work life and there was private life and the two were _entirely_ distinct and separate. That was right and proper.

Sue would have been extremely affronted if any of her colleagues had ever suggested that her relationship with Kent was anything other than completely professional.

The fact that they were fucking like rabbits had no bearing on their _working_ relationship. Obviously. She was far above anything like that. Kent of course as well. But mostly Sue.

They had been entirely successful in keeping their relationship out of the office. It was almost embarrassing how well they had kept it a secret.

***

It was so fucking _gross_. Nobody needed to see that kind of stuff. It was bad enough that people did that kind of shit in their own homes. Public displays of affection were bad enough in in bars and all that shit. But at _work_? That was obscene. It was a good job that Sue was Amy’s friend or Amy would totally have said something to HR about it. Or complained about it to Dan anyway. If it had been someone else, then she’d have had drinks with Sue while they both talked about how much they despised office romances. But it wasn’t someone else, it was Sue, and Sue absolutely never accepted that she should be held to the same standards as everyone else.

Sue had stopped bringing in a coffee in the morning. Now she arrived without, confident in the knowledge that Kent would arrive carrying her favourite coffee for her. He didn’t even seem to care that people saw him. Sue even smiled at him. It was Sue so it was barely a twitch of her lips, but Amy knew. Anyone who saw Kent saunter away like he’d just seen a really great graph knew.

What was worse than the coffee, way worse than the coffee, was his hair. Sue thought that nobody had noticed. God, Amy _wished_ that she hadn’t noticed. She had been going to see Kent about some polling that he was doing. She hadn’t wanted to, Kent always hoped that people were more interested in his polls than they had any reason to be, but Selina let that shit bother her way too much. As far as Amy knew, Sue had no damn reason to even be in his office, let alone messing with his hair.

It was so damn weird. Who did that? Who willing touched another person’s hair? Ugh! Thank Christ he _had_ hair at least. Amy didn’t want to think what Sue might have done if she was dating one of the many bald assholes that littered the Capitol. Kent had too much hair, if anything. At last he wasn’t vain enough to dye it. Nobody his age had their original colour hair, _Ben._ It was dumb to pretend otherwise. Selina probably didn’t even have her original colour. Amy didn’t know that for sure, but she’d found too many grey hairs herself and no way was she aging worse that Selina.

***

He didn’t get it. Fucking around with a secretary was the bullshit that slimy fuckers like Andrew Doyle went in for. And Andrew Meyer. Just fucking… men call Andrew it seemed like. If Dan ever got married, he would definitely be sniffing around after secretaries. What was wrong with a woman with a _career_ and intelligence? Like a nurse. It didn’t have to be a nurse obviously but like a nurse. Or maybe a teacher. Someone who would be kind and nurturing. Ben couldn’t imagine Sue Wilson nurturing anyone. There was nothing soft or giving about her. She was all hard edges and angles. Even Selina Meyer had more vulnerability and affection. Not that Kent was much better. He had the warmth and passion of a calculator. He was definitely less fun. At least you could make a calculator say “BOOBS” upside down. Ben was pretty sure that Kent wouldn’t say anything fun if you turned him upside down. Although he’d never tried.

Joyce thought it was sweet. Joyce thought Kent having cats was sweet. Joyce didn’t have the best judgment when it came to Kent. Or cats. She kept bugging Ben to invite Kent and Sue around for dinner. It was bad enough that Ben had to talk to Kent in work without volunteering to spend time with the guy _socially_. Plus, there was the whole other problem of them apparently pretending that they weren’t actually dating. Or hooking up or whatever the hell people said these days. Did people still Netflix and Chill or was that over now?

That had to be Sue's decision. Kent didn’t have enough social fucking awareness to realise that all that shit should be on the down low. He’d probably be so damn pleased that any human being would be even a little bit attracted to him that he’d tell everyone. It was kinda creepy too. There was a _big_ age gap. Sure, Ben had been married four times. Three times? Four times. He was pretty sure that it was four times. Sure, he’d been married a bunch of times, but always to women who were age appropriate. None of his kids were in danger of having to go to school with their stepmom or any of that shit. He wasn’t totally sure how old Sue was, but she was definitely a lot younger than Kent. Not that Kent seemed to be the one with the heavy hand there. Sue bossed him around when they thought nobody was looking. Ben had heard her on the phone to him. Yes, Sue. No, Sue. Three bags full, Sue. Ugh.

Ben had seen the way that Kent looked at her. Ben didn’t know that he had ever looked at anyone he was banging like that. He didn’t think he did that. Christ, he hoped he didn’t. It was embarrassing enough seeing Kent make puppy eyes at Sue. You’d think that she was some fucking goddess descended from on high, not a jumped-up secretary with delusions of grandeur. Look, Ben liked Sue fine. She was actually pretty competent and didn’t seem to be a complete fuck up. That was rare as hell in the West Wing. It wasn’t that he disliked her, he just didn’t think their relationship seemed healthy. And after three or four marriages he should know an unhealthy relationship when he saw one, right?

***

There had been a time when Catherine had a tiny little bit of an issue with older men. This had been a bit of a problem before she was dating Marjorie but even now, although she would _never_ act on it, she still had a lingering little… _thing_ for Kent Davison. She knew all the stuff about daddy issues and blah blah. Knowing that didn’t magically stopping her having daddy issues. Or having a lingering little thing for Kent.

She saw them, Kent and Sue, in the parking lot, at the end of a long day. Kent was leaning against his car while Sue leaned towards him. She was playing with his tie, twisting it around her fingers. It was weird seeing them that way.

Catherine had always known Sue as a forbidding, stern figure, far more even than her mother. When it came to Catherine, Selina had two modes of operation: keeping her at arm’s length at all costs or telling her way too much about her _intimate_ problems and issues.

It was difficult to take it seriously when her mother attempted to be intimidating. She yelled a lot, but Catherine had also heard her whining endlessly about her various partners being “crap” in bed. More than that, when Selina had her breakdowns, Catherine had a front row view. She loved her mother, as difficult as that was sometimes, but she no longer respected her. She hadn’t respected her in a long time.

Sue was always respected. Sue commanded, _demanded_ , respect. She treated the merest suggestion that she might have vulnerability as a personal insult. It was impossible to imagine Sue ever complaining about a boyfriend. Catherine could more easily see her crushing an unsuccessful suitor with the force of her displeasure than have any kind of conversation with them.

Kent was different. Even when Catherine had first met him, when she was a gawky teenager, she hadn’t thought he was intimidating. A little stern maybe but she it was a consistent, reliable sternness. More reliable, more welcome, than Selina’s vacillation between coldness and overweening neediness. Much more reliable than Andrew’s near total neglect interspersed with displays of affection that were _always_ accompanied with emotional manipulation for one purpose or another. She did not have the skill, creatively or emotionally, to describe Kent’s innate social awkwardness. She recognised it, as children and teenagers almost always do, and she understood it well enough. He wasn’t comfortable around people, let alone children, but that was better than the adults who prided themselves on being “good with children.” They never were, but instead assumed disdain and condescension were somehow the same thing. Most of her mom’s West Wing people were impatient and bad-tempered, patronising, or just flat out ignored her.

Sue made Kent nervous. Catherine had noticed right away, even before he asked her if Sue had a boyfriend. That had been really strange, but Catherine had liked that he asked _her_.

‘That’s hot,’ Marjorie said, looking over at them.

Catherine had looked at her wide-eyed. ‘I thought you said you’d never found men attractive.’

‘I never have.’ Marjorie looked confused. Well, as confused as she ever looked, which wasn’t much to be honest.

‘But Kent…?’

‘I meant Sue,’ Marjorie said. She looked back at them. Sue was now getting into her own car while Kent watched. ‘Although if I had to, then sleeping with Kent wouldn’t kill me.’

‘Sue is a little scary,’ Catherine said.

‘Yes,’ Marjorie said. ‘It’s hot.’

***

There were lots of things that Kent liked about dating. Certainly, there were a few things that he didn’t like but that was true of many things in life and most things that were worth doing. Of course, the sex was always something that he enjoyed. To use the vernacular, sex was like pizza. Even when it was bad, it was still pretty good.

What he liked _most_ was something that he wasn’t always able to achieve in a relationship: genuine intimacy. Sex _could_ be intimate but so could conversations, a touch, or even a look. The little inside jokes were a kind of intimacy. It wasn’t that they were necessarily sexually charged. Most of them weren’t at all sexual but they were private, _secret,_ almost. It didn’t matter that they were secrets with no consequences. It was a kind of game, the best kind, where there was only cooperation and no competition. No losers, only winners.

Kent didn’t make friends easily. It wasn’t due to a lack of desire so much as a lack of skill. Social interactions were difficult not because of anxiety, he knew very well how much some people struggled with that, but his frequent failure to comprehend the sometimes subtle, often obscure codes and subtexts that people often employed. He had tried dating people with whom he was not friends. It had never gone well.

He wasn’t sure that Sue would consider them to be friends. She seemed to believe that it was impossible for men and women to be friends. However, Kent had quickly learned that what Sue _said_ and what she _believed_ could be radically different. Kent hoped that they were friends. As prickly as she could be, as judgmental as she certainly was, he genuinely enjoyed her company.

‘You’re staring into space,’ Sue said.

Kent put down his fork and took a sip of his wine. ‘I was thinking.’

‘You normally manage that without completely zoning out,’ she said, gesturing to the server for another bottle of wine. ‘One might say you are noted for it.’

‘I was thinking that I hope you consider us to be friends as well as lovers.’ 

She tilted her head. ‘That’s ridiculous. Men and women cannot be friends.’

‘I disagree,’ he said mildly.

‘You’re wrong.’ She leaned over to kiss him softly. ‘But if it’s important to you then we can certainly try.’

The End


End file.
